Other Perspectives on Research

This week a highlight was getting to meet up with our second research mentor. We had a conversation with him as well as several of the other research students, where we were able to hear about his experience in research, as well as ask our own questions. It was great to get to speak candidly with another mentor, outside of the context of a project or classroom. The following pieces that he shared were meaningful for me to hear:

• Doing a phd allows you to work on more niche research than industry might allow. If I have a specific niche interest that doesn’t seem as applicable in industry, staying in academia might give me a little more intellectual freedom to work on it.

• Doing research enables you to be a part of a research community and make friends all over the world. Our mentor shared what it was like for him to cultivate friendship over his niche academic interests, and fun ways that he has been able to keep in touch with and nourish his friendships int he research community over the years.

• Liking reading and writing is important. In research, there is a lot of reading through papers, books, staying up to date with the conversation in the field, and in beign an active part of that, a lot of reading and writing is required.

• He shared his interest in Human Robot Interaction (where robots and psychology meet). This conversation was particularly exciting for me, as I took a Human Computer Interaction course last fall, thinking it would be more along the lines of HRI. It was satisfying to finally get to hear more about this intersection from someone who actively researches in that field.

On a separate note, I also want to share an update on my technological skill development. As I was debugging something the other day, I was in the browser and I instinctually used the inspect feature to learn more about what I was looking at and why it wasn’t showing up. This was a big deal for me, as a recent transplant to computer science and someone newer to debugging in the browser, to have this instinctive reaction to a problem. It made me feel like the hours I have been putting in are starting to pay off in practical ways.